“Stick to Sports” and Critical Sports Media Industry Studies

ESPN's president (at the time of writing), Jimmy Pitaro, transferred from Disney (the parent company of ESPN) in 2018, where he previously held the title of the head of Disney's digital and consumer products division (Kafka, 2019). Upon his arrival, Pitaro announced a “No-Politics” policy, detailing the exclusion of what was deemed “pure” politics (Flood, 2019). ESPN received repeated criticism for being too political under the previous president John Skipper (Marchand, 2019). According to John Ourand at the Sports Business Journal, ESPN's own polling from June of 2019 showed eighty-five percent of avid sports fans did not want politics on ESPN platforms (Kinkead, 2019). Internally, ESPN built a calcifying logic, a form of “digital lore” (Burroughs, 2015, 2019; Wayne & Uribe Sandoval, 2023), about the audience to justify the need to present all sports apolitically, divorced from controversy. Ourand reported on ESPN's reliance on a single focus group comment to justify its desired neutrality:

ESPN also shared one anonymous comment that it collected from a focus group that the network feels best illustrates a common view: people come to ESPN to get a break from the political news cycle: “There are so many places where I get news about politics, and I don't need it on ESPN.” When you introduce that element of broad politics, it ruins having a diversion (Burns, 2019).

This paper aims at unpacking the “stick to sports” discourse, which audiences wield to police social and cultural boundaries and ideological battles involving race, gender, and politics. As the GMG Union (2019) tweeted in the wake of mass Deadspin staff resignations, “‘Stick to sports’ is a novel articulation of a thinly veiled euphemism for ‘don’t speak truth to power.’” Deadspin's staff was dealing with the private equity firm Great Hill Partners directives that the sports blog stick to sports (Frank, 2022). The discourse is used to dictate who can and cannot speak in addition to what kinds of discussions are appropriate concerning sports, which bleeds into audience uptake of controversial political sports talk. Sports media industries use this discourse of “stick to sports” as leverage to push for political neutrality and ambivalence where efficacious.

The idea of “stick to sports” is not new, and was incorporated in ESPN's mission statement when the company launched in 1979:

What we’re creating here is a network for sports junkies. This is not programming for soft-core sports fans who like to watch an NFL game and then switch to the news. This is a network for people who like to watch a college football game, then a wrestling match, gymnastics meet, and a soccer game, followed by an hour-long talk show—on sports (Johnson, 1979).

We begin with a call for more critical media industry studies in sports communication and sports media research, providing a brief overview of the history of sticking to sports, followed by an analysis of Clay Travis’ PragerU call to “stick to sports.” This is problematized by the NBA and China human rights debate, ending with a discussion of the treatment of Dan Le Batard and Jemele Hill. The industry practices of ESPN and articulations of the “stick to sports” discourse will be analyzed through a critical media industry studies approach while examining ancillary strands of the discourse in sports media and society.

Critical Sport Media Industry Studies

Havens et al. (2009) want to emphasize the centrality of the term “industry” by acknowledging its importance within society and cultural studies literature. They propose “critical media industry studies through grounded institutional case studies that examine the relationships between strategies and tactics” (p. 247). Extending this approach, we look at “textual extensions” of the stick-to-sports discourse, which, taken together, solidify as the ideological underpinnings of the discourse (Oates, 2017, p. 20). These textual extensions can be “paratextual” materials such as podcasts, internet videos, or promotional/public relations materials that shape the relationship between audiences and industry (Gray, 2010). Just like critical media industry studies, CSMIS takes an expansive view of what constitutes sports media industries. Not only would a media company like ESPN fall under this purview, but also sports leagues and organizations that rely on and have built themselves through mediated relationships with audiences on television, social media, print and many other modes of engagement. Relying on the Havens et al. (2009) critical media industry studies approach, this paper aims to further carve out a conceptual toolkit and enhanced qualitative space in sports media scholarship.

However, there are valuable studies that can serve as a foundation for the conjoining of “critical media industry studies’’ and “sports studies.” Jhally's (1984) attention to a sports/media complex shows the “symbiotic relationship between professional sports and mass media” (p. 42). CSMIS pushes this understanding further by locating how and why critical discourses shape and remake sport industries, thus influencing sport audiences, institutions, and practices. Travis Vogan (2015) researched ESPN's culture, the symbolic capital it amasses, and the company's “attempts to build authority within and beyond sports media” (p. 3). Vogan outlines “how ESPN's efforts to build refinement augment its global activities, event coverage, and news programming” (p. 9). This refinement was an institutional strategy built through its programming, but also acted discursively by blending industry practices and sports coverage to impact sports fans and consumers. In following Vogan, this research identifies contemporary articulations of sports discourse that serve as ruptures in the unity of sports. Henry and Oates (2020) analyze “the industrial and political contexts” (p. 154) that debate shows like First Take and Pardon the Interruption take within ESPN and how they produce an ideological positioning of racial colorblindness. The authors are able to locate these discourses within the shows themselves, but also through what ESPN executives and others say about the shows. This is an example of how CSMIS can elucidate the institutional contexts of sports media industries, but also critically engage with the cultural and ideological work done by these industries, which informs sports fans and audiences' understanding of race, gender, sexuality, and a host of sport discourses.

Although “stick to sports” is a recent discursive articulation, there are a few studies in the literature that recognize the discourse's existence and potency. Secular's (2019) research highlights the mediatization and marketization of sport from the 1980s through the mid-2010s and how the National Basketball Association (NBA) and sports networks used “stick to sports’’ to regulate and discipline their employees and fans by placing barriers around controversy. Rugg (2020) analyzes the NFL's “Inspire Change” production, combining industry and textual analysis of media artifacts—articulations of the NFL—through “the composite of the texts, their interaction with each other, and the political context that surrounds their creation” (p. 612–613). Serazio and Thorson (2020) found through a survey of sports fans that players are expected to avoid politics because they’re perceived “as threatening to society, not intellectually equipped to engage, and illegitimate as leaders” (p. 151). They identify as one of the “perils of politicizing sports,” a category they label as “‘stick to sports’ simplicity” (p. 159). Fans responded that politics is not “the job” of players, and rather they should focus on improving their performance on the field.

Building on this point, we argue that the “stick to sports” discourse goes beyond the talk of sports fans and is used by media industries and fans to continually reinscribe institutional power. Butterworth (2020) adeptly questions the “logic of consensus,” eschewing unity through sports in favor of “sport's emphasis on contestation” (p. 454). Sports are always already political. He rightly believes “uncritical demands for unity fail to account for or resolve the legitimate causes of disruption and dissent” (p. 467). This does not mean that ESPN has not faced real economic pressure from fans when responding to the perceived politics of the network (Clavio & Vooris, 2018). Although often exaggerated (Peterson & Munoz, 2022), there are economic incentives for maintaining this logic of consensus. However, the ability to disassociate politics and sports–to call for neutrality or claim sports as a unified sanctuary of leisure–is itself a form of ideological boundary work that a CSMIS lens seeks to unpack.

Locating a History of “Stick to Sports”

There are countless examples of ruptures in the facade of sport as apolitical. Cottrell and Nelson (2011) used cases of Olympic protest between 1896 and 2008 to show the political potency of the global spectacle. Despite this apolitical facade, politics are intertwined with the Olympics, such as the Depression Games in 1932 and the Nazi Games in 1936, through the Cold War and beyond (Boykoff, 2017, p. 166). The notion of athletes needing to “stick to sports” butted up against athlete activism in the 1960s and 70 s with Muhammad Ali's refusal to enlist in the military, which cost him three years away from boxing and the forfeiture of his championship title (Brown & Brison, 2018). Track & field stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in the air to protest lynching while on the podium during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City (p. 253, see also Hartmann, 1996, for further depth on the history of race and sports in protest). The “Syracuse 8” saw several African American football players fighting for equality by starting a petition requesting equal access to tutors, academic advisors, and medical staff. Billie Jean King fought for equal treatment and pay, threatening to boycott the U.S. Open until the demand was granted in 1973 (Brown & Brison, 2018, p. 254). The United States Women's National Team's (USWNT) fight for equality and equal pay is just one of many examples in an important lineage of activism in women's sports.

The Worldwide Leader in Politics?

Sports journalist and media personality Clay Travis of FoxSports and founder of OutKick, has been a staunch critic of ESPN, continually voicing his dissatisfaction with the purported political direction of the network. Specifically, his video titled Politics and Sports: Keep Your Hands Off My Football, published November 26, 2018, on the website PragerU.com, challenges ESPN's lack of commitment to “stick to sports” and offers a poignant example of the articulation and concretization of the discourse. PragerU defines itself as an “American non-profit organization featuring videos of various political, economic, and philosophical topics from an American conservative perspective” (“PragerU,” n.d.). PragerU connects with “hyperpartisan sports media” outlets such as Fox News and Breitbart, which push the critique of ESPN's coverage and personnel decisions in recent years—the appearance of integrating politics into its sports and media coverage. (Falcous et al., 2019; Peterson & Munoz, 2022).

Travis poses the question “When did sports become so political?” to open his monologue. The Travis video critiques ESPN for the growing politicization of sports–ranging from ESPN transforming from a 24/7 sports network to a more liberal company by replacing “ratings bonuses with diversity bonuses” and granting “woke analysts” such as “Jemele Hill, Max Kellerman, and Bomani Jones their own shows” (Travis, 2018). Travis uses the rhetorically weaponized and racially charged phrase “woke analysts” to attempt to discipline these journalists.

But as Strenk (1979) writes, “sports are politics” (p. 129), and sports have always-already intermingled with politics. The failure to “stick to sports” is detailed by Travis's condemnation of ESPN for their inclusion of Colin Kaepernick's protest rather than the game of “football” itself. He faults the company for contaminating the market by influencing other sports journalism sites such as USA Today, Yahoo Sports, and Sports Illustrated. Thanks to ESPN, Travis states that on those platforms, “You’re as likely to read about players’ thoughts on the President, as you are about their thoughts on the game” (Travis, 2018). He forcefully advocates for ESPN to “stick to sports,” further solidifying and materializing the discourse. Travis notes that the network has fractured the “unifying power” of sports through its dose of politics. He claims that ESPN added politics because they “realized it was losing its clout” (Travis, 2018).

Travis belittles sports journalists’ capability of “sticking to sports.” He believes that (a) “they’re afraid of being called racist or sexist,” (b) “they want to be friends with the athletes,” (c) “they want to think of themselves as ‘serious’ journalists,” (d) “they come from the same journalism schools as the political reporters,” and (e) “they’re overwhelmingly on the left” (Travis, 2018). He pronounces that ESPN has consistently lost subscribers since 2011, arguing that political talk impedes viewership. There is no mention of the fragmentation of viewership with cable and the rise of streaming services, but the implication is clear; not sticking to sports is bad for the bottom-line of companies. Furthermore, it alienates audiences, reducing the purity of sports as the cordoned off, safe haven of American masculinity. Travis argues for sports’ importance in America, how Americans need a “break from our everyday cares,” “its unique ability to unite our community, our nation,” and “the civics lesson” that comes from sports (Travis, 2018). A (false) unity is imagined and put on a pedestal. Travis is policing ESPN, along with the rest of the sports media ecology, by emphasizing that sports are too essential to be “poisoned” with politics.

Contrary to the previous efforts by ESPN to craft an image of prestige despite its popular culture ubiquity (Vogan, 2012, p. 138), the perception that the network is inadequate in its journalistic integrity and spends an extensive amount of time on scandals circling sports rather than on sporting events themselves is seized upon by Travis. Travis views ESPN as neglecting sports on the field in favor of politics, especially with anthem protest reporting, which he sees as the rationale for their existence. Even though Travis is advocating that the intermingling of politics with sports is ultimately harming sports, he supports the patriotic politics of the National Anthem, saying, “We begin every sports contest united” (Travis, 2018). Travis is fine with militaristic rituals of comm(unity) and patriotism but continues to bash ESPN for politicizing sports (Butterworth, 2012; Rugg, 2016). What Travis does not comprehend, however, is that “(t)here is no unity, only politics” (Butterworth, 2021, p. 190, emphasis in original). Travis is somewhat unique as he straddles entertainment and journalism, but is part of a broader conservative ecosystem, including Fox News and Breitbart, which sustains the “stick to sports” narrative whenever sports coverage draws their ire (Falcous et al., 2019; Peterson and Munoz, 2022).

Yet, despite Travis harping on ESPN to purify its network, Jimmy Pitaro had already been actively working towards removing “pure politics” from the network. The CSMIS approach connects the Travis call for a fake unity with the institutional logics that calcify the practice within ESPN itself. Pitaro stressed in 2018, ESPN was trying to “redefine itself against a false narrative that it was pursuing sports coverage from a liberal political angle” (Henry & Oates, 2020). He believed employees were confused about the network's expectations under previous leadership (Flood, 2019). Ultimately, ESPN deemed sports commentators, journalists, and personalities like Jemele Hill and Michelle Beadle too controversial for the network, leading to their being released (Marchand, 2019) and the false unity perpetuated.

NBA/China Rupture

The ongoing Hong Kong protests over democracy, however, highlight the inherent tensions and contradictions between sports media industries within the stick-to-sports discourse, thrusting the National Basketball Association (NBA) into a site of rupture. On October 4, 2019, Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey promoted a tweet supporting the protest, resulting in China halting cooperation with the team (Perper, 2019). The Rockets’ Owner, Tilman Fertitta, and the NBA moved swiftly into damage control to protect their burgeoning prospects in the Chinese market, continued global reach, and brand building (Connolly, 2019). The Rockets, in particular, have a unique relationship with the Chinese market. Chinese NBA legend Yao Ming—the player who elevated the status of basketball in China—spent his entire career with the Rockets and, at the time of Morey's tweet, was the president of the Chinese Basketball Association. The NBA called the tweet “regrettable” and apologized for “deeply offending” Chinese fans (Lane, 2019). Several Chinese businesses and corporate sponsors of the Rockets suspended their deals and collaborations (Tensley, 2019). These actions led to a countervailing firestorm where political commentators, as well as fans, denigrated the NBA for protecting its own brand rather than human rights (Brzeski, 2019).

Both NBA players and coaches were involuntarily thrust into the thick of a public relations dilemma, delicately trying to remain neutral. Many wanted to distance themselves from the scandal by remaining silent to protect their brands (Lovelace, 2019). In interviews with the press, Stephen Curry and Steve Kerr stressed their lack of knowledge about the protests, while Houston Rockets star James Harden offered his apologies expressing, “We love China” (Felt, 2019; Rodrigo, 2019). LeBron James did not shy away from publicly discussing his opinion (Saracevic, 2019). Referencing Morey's tweet, James said that he was “misinformed” and “uneducated” and that Morey “didn’t think about the ramifications” (Saracevic, 2019). James’ comments were then critiqued, especially amongst “stick to sports” influencers, for placing revenue over human rights, especially when juxtaposed with his outspoken activist and community work combating the problem of police brutality in the United States. James and his Miami Heat teammates wore hoodies in solidarity over the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 (Dunne, 2017). However, in this particular context, James did not join in supporting the Hong Kong protest of the Chinese government or the treatment of the Uighur Muslim people. James’ comments even led to endorsement losses (Silverman, 2019). Besides comments from Curry, Harden, and James, most agents encouraged their clients to withdraw themselves from the China controversy, prodding them to “stick to sports” (Young, 2019). This enforcement of neutrality, resulting in players and coaches selectively detaching from controversy, potentially stifles the ability and legitimacy of these same influential voices when speaking out on other social issues. Players’ neutrality favored the NBA and their respective economic futures in the league by seemingly kowtowing to Chinese national interests (Smith, 2019).

Between the U.S. and China, the NBA struggled to appease one side without alienating the other (Beer, 2019). It should also be noted that a few months before the tweet, the NBA re-upped an exclusive digital rights deal for five additional years with the Chinese digital media company Tencent to distribute the NBA in China that served close to 500 million Chinese fans through the 2024–2025 season (NBA.com, 2019). After the tweet, Tencent threatened to suspend all streaming of the Houston Rockets and offered fans an option to switch to a different team if they had selected the Rockets as their home team on a single team watching pass. Just like movie studios wanting to enter the Chinese market, the NBA has an obvious economic incentive when dealing with China. The league, however, has been lauded in the past for allowing players to speak freely about political issues (Minsberg, 2018), as long as it does not interfere with substantive business relationships (Hill, 2019). The league supports a degree of activism, through which the NBA differentiates itself from other sports leagues, branding itself as the “League Encouraging Political Activism” (Tensley, 2019). The NBA/China rupture shows that the branded activism of the NBA, as a strategic logic, is largely an act of economic convenience (Connolly, 2019). Furthermore, the NBA shielded themselves by “sticking to sports” instead of dealing with the gritty minutiae of human rights entanglements. In doing so, the league reneged on its encouragement of political activism to cater to Chinese nationalism.

The backlash was so intense that the Rockets owner Fertitta even considered removing Morey from his position as general manager to placate Chinese business interests (Gonzalez, 2019). Sticking to sports entered the realm of global geopolitics. The NBA was working internally to fix their business relations and externally to police fans in physical space through arenas, squelching democratic protest through panoptic precision. Fans were ejected from games for showing support for the Hong Kong protests by displaying cardboard signs and political messages (Baer, 2019). Many of these live-streamed videos circulated on social media, despite the NBA's clear policy to silence any dissenting voices by maintaining the stance of neutrality in arenas. The league, articulated through arena staff, disciplined fans as they confiscated political messaging and sanitized arenas by silencing dissent–evidence of an institutional strategy to “stick to sports.” It was apparent that the Chinese government and the NBA intended to suppress content related to the “Daryl Morey Controversy,” burying the visibility of the story in the media and at ESPN.

Due to the political connotations tied to the NBA/China controversy, ESPN took action by releasing yet another “stick to sports” memo related to the protests. It instructed employees to avoid discussion solely about the protests and target basketball-related issues instead (Wagner, 2019). ESPN muzzled their media talent from sounding off about the matter, further moving away from their former stance of engagement and activism through “sports talk.” This memo strongly resembles the aforementioned “No-Politics’’ policy, which pushes the same neutral message of “stick to sports.” Aligning with the NBA's approach, ESPN suppressed deliberation over the core issues in the Hong Kong and Uighur protests and restricted any discussions that did not fit within the guardrails of neutrality. The memos from ESPN provide two distinct messages from the corporation with clear instructions to “stick to sports,” dissuading those on ESPN's platforms from taking part in future advocacy-based political speech.

Although Clay Travis previously condemned ESPN for allowing political dialogue, he opportunistically switched to an activist voice with the NBA and China political scandal, challenging sports figures to “stand up and talk,” rather than the normalized call to these same athletes to “shut up and dribble.” Travis advocated that the league should not have apologized for promoting democracy, and their decision to ignore China's abuse of human rights catered to the “wrong side of history” (Travis, 2019). His stance transformed from reprimanding ESPN's progressive activism to demanding that American sports figures advocate and adopt pro-democracy stances worldwide. Travis claims that the league is only cognizant of activism when it's financially beneficial (Travis, 2019). In the name of Chinese citizens’ human rights, Travis is willing to break up the (false) unity of sports but is unwilling to do so in the context of U.S. human rights issues or black activism. For Travis in his PragerU video, sports are not the venue to discuss political issues, but with the NBA/China rupture, he is comfortable using sports as the full-throated vehicle to drive home his respective political ideology. The CSMIS lens shows how these uneven hypocritical institutional practices and contradictions show the precariousness of sticking to sports.

Enter Le Batard

If sports are not an appropriate venue to discuss political issues, then the outspoken Dan Le Batard presents a sports media figure pushing the contours of industry constraints. Le Batard began his ESPN tenure in the late 1990s when he became a staff member of ESPN: The Magazine (Strauss, 2020). For almost 30 years, Le Batard worked as a columnist at the Miami Herald, where he grew up and later graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Politics from the University of Miami. He birthed his show, Highly Questionable (HQ), in 2011 (Nesheim, 2011), featuring his father along with an interchangeable rotating guest, while his brand-named show (The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz) debuted on ESPN Radio in 2015. The difference between the shows is that HQ pairs comedic relief with sports commentary, whereas The Dan Le Batard Show synthesizes “self-deprecating humor, insightful guests, and thoughtful conversation” (ESPN Radio, n.d.). Those “thoughtful conversations” have often landed Le Batard squarely in the realm of politics.

These thoughtful jaunts into the political include several verbal encounters with President Trump; one ending in a swift suspension. On July 17, 2019, Trump spoke at a rally in North Carolina where he criticized Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee, naturalized American citizen, and one of the first of two Muslim women elected to Congress. Chants of “send her back” echoed from the Trump crowd, as the President aided the chants and relished in the crowd's response to his provocations. Le Batard spoke about the matter on his show, calling Trump's actions “un-American” and adding that he was wrongly “trying to get reelected by dividing the masses, at a time when the old white man, the old rich white man, feels oppressed, being attacked, by minorities” (Strauss, 2019, para. 5). Le Batard was very critical about ESPN's “No-Politics” policy and said emphatically, “We here at ESPN don’t have the stomach for the fight. We don’t talk about what is happening unless there is some sort of weak, cowardly sports angle that we can run it through” (para. 6). Le Batard called the policy misguided due to sport's place in political history with athletes including Muhammed Ali, Jim Brown, Bill Russell, and others (Strauss, 2019). Le Batard was not sticking to sports.

This was not the first time Le Batard flouted ESPN's political constraints. He was heartbroken when Major League Baseball (MLB) played an exhibition game in Cuba. Le Batard was visibly disturbed talking about it on his show, voicing his strong concern over how the United States government, and then-President Obama, seemed to show support for Cuban authorities at the potential expense of the Cuban people (Hoffarth, 2019). In 2017, after President Trump enacted a travel ban against Muslims, fellow ESPN employee Sage Steele took to Instagram to comment on how she was saddened over being inconvenienced by protesters of the ban at the Los Angeles Airport that caused her to miss her flight. Le Batard criticized Steele for her complaints and poignantly critiqued ESPN for allowing this kind of social media posting that he viewed as expressly political (Barstow, 2017). Being of Cuban descent, Le Batard was vocal about his disgust for his colleague's insensitivity. He referred to her remarks as “the height of privilege” and said that Steele opened “the floodgates for the rest of us” (Barstow, 2017). Le Batard's larger point was that ESPN was duplicitous in allowing politically charged social media posts on the one hand, but reigning in any on-air politics. Le Batard thought the network's rationale was nothing short of illogical (Thomas, 2019). Despite the employment of the “No-Politics” policy, Le Batard straddled the line between sports and politics, continually stoking political fires with sports commentary.

Returning to Le Batard's comments regarding President Trump and his campaign rally, a memo from ESPN was sent out immediately after his statements on-air reminding employees to avoid “pure politics” and deliver sports as a “distraction from heavy issues” (Parker, 2019). The memo, sent by Norby Williamson, ESPN's executive vice president, explained that an employee should bring any political feelings to the attention of higher-ups at ESPN, and they would figure out how to address it. The memo states, “If someone feels strong about something, please come to us, and we'll have a thoughtful discussion on how and where they can address” (para. 5). Within this broader debate about the role of sports in issues related to social justice, politics, and gender, ESPN as a company deploys the discourse of sticking to sports to sanitize sports from anything disruptively controversial, rendering it palatable for the masses. Neutrality is a stance that reinforces discourses that excuse audiences who say ‘we’ do not want sports to be a site for deliberating over social issues. As CSMIS shows ESPN benefits economically from this posturing and calcifies the discourse within a broader sports culture and society. The “stick to sports” mandate expresses a double standard of “don’t speak truth to power,” but also “keep the fans happy.”

The Stickiness of Sports

ESPN buttressed its “stick to sports” mandate when Dan Le Batard spoke out against President Trump, but he was far from the first employee. Former ESPN analyst Jemele Hill lost her job in response to a similar incident. This serves as yet another moment of rupture wherein the political valence of ESPN is made visible, displaying an institutional practice of “stick to sports.” In 2017, Hill tweeted, “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself with other white supremacists” (Miller, 2018). Hill received significant backlash for publicly calling out President Trump, which led to White House Press Secretary, Sarah Sanders, calling for ESPN to fire Hill. Although those efforts were unsuccessful, President Trump responded to Hill, claiming that her actions were the reason ESPN's ratings were falling. President Trump was enacting the discourse of “stick to sports,” self-servingly urging ESPN to choose revenue by silencing an employee. This again sparked fans’ agitation with the perception of an abundance of political content on ESPN devolving into “stereotypical tropes and uncivil discourse” (Harrison et al., 2020). Hill got suspended for two weeks after it was determined she violated ESPN's social media policy. In a memo sent out to employees, John Skipper reiterated, “ESPN is about sports” and is “not a political organization” (Stelter, 2017). When Jimmy Pitaro overtook the company the following year, he attempted to minimize the perception that ESPN had a “political agenda,” and Hill ultimately agreed to a buyout with ESPN in 2018 after spending 12 years with the company (Miller, 2018).

Disney's Chairman, Bob Iger, supported Pitaro's strategy, and Hill saw the writing on the wall. She recalls that her former co-worker Michael Smith and herself were demarcated as “political” even before the President Trump incident, building from their African-American heritage (Miller, 2018). During the time of Hill's tweet, a spokesperson for ESPN said that her personal beliefs were fine, but not to share them publicly, given that she also represents the network (Bieler, 2017). During this writing, Dan Le Batard and ESPN parted ways after eight years on the platform (Negley, 2021). Hill, similar to Kaepernick, risked her career by using her voice and platform.

ESPN tried to persuade Hill to stay at the network after the fallout, offering her positions on Highly Questionable, SportsNation (now canceled), or the opportunity to do “in-depth work” at the culturally focused, The Undefeated (Marchand, 2018). Since her departure, she has been involved in many projects, including podcasting and writing for The Atlantic. Asked about the difference between Hill's days at ESPN versus her future with The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, the company's Editor-in-Chief, responded:

Put it this way, my journalistic interests are somewhat different than Disney's…Let me be diplomatic. I’m not sure that, as a consumer of ESPN products, I’m not sure that ESPN is particularly interested, especially in television, in standing at the intersection of sports and culture and race and gender and politics. It can be a pretty dangerous corner for some people. But that's exactly the intersection that I want to be at (Miller, 2018).

Conclusion

Kaepernick's protest, combined with Le Batard and Hill's presidential attacks, serve as articulations of the “stick to sports” discourse. Le Batard's rupture underscored ESPN's discourse on neutrality, and how they strategically employ the discourse of “sticking to sports” more broadly to discipline audiences and push back against politicization despite popular culture and sports specifically representing potential sites of struggle. Sticking to sports normalizes institutional knowledge and power (Havens et al., 2009). Dan Le Batard and Jemele Hill both challenged the “stick to sports” discourse leading to separate disciplinary actions and ultimately the departure of both from the network. ESPN sheltered its brand and flexed the company's authority over employees through a policy of neutrality and the institutional practice of sticking to sports. “Stick to sports” is the spoken and unspoken hegemonic boundary work, the institutional editorializing authority ESPN wields over employees and audiences. ESPN has likewise acquiesced to fans and political voices using the call to “stick to sports” as a way to sterilize attempts by players, coaches, and media figures to make sports a site for deliberating over social issues. Sports media industries are insulating their brands through a politics of apolitical posturing and cautioning employees and sports journalists to think twice before traversing that boundary.